Epiphany and a weeknight out

If you are looking for a nice meal or even a great weeknight deal, look no farther than Epiphany in downtown Tuscaloosa. I consider myself pretty "in the know" about things going on in Tuscaloosa, but somehow I totally missed that Epiphany has half price small plates Monday-Thursday 5-7pm. And, if you aren't familiar with this restaurant, the small plates aren't boring, bland appetizers. Their focus on bringing fresh, local, and upscale food to Tuscaloosa. With the words Farm to Table on the building, you know they desire to provide fresh, local, food. And that's what you find with items on the menu from places like Buhl and Coker.  And, the menu changes often. In fact, the night we went, the bartender mentioned the menu would be changing the next night. I think we have been hesitant to  go to Epiphany because of the price. But, it really wouldn't be that far off some of the other restaurants we go to more often.  And, for a nice night out, I certainly think this would be one of the best options in Tuscaloosa.

For the half price deal, you have to sit at the bar, out front, or at one of the high top bar tables. We don't mind doing that at all. In fact, on this visit, we asked our bartender, Anthony, lots of questions about different menu items and we really enjoyed talking with him. They serve a lot of local Alabama beer and Wes tried one from Huntsville. The have a nice wine list but a limited number of them are served by the glass. It seemed there was at least one of each type of grape, but often times, just that one. All of that is good with me, though.

We started with the bread service. This is a freshly made brown sugar bread served with a homemade pork butter. The slightly sweet bread paired wonderfully with the slightly salty butter.

Bread service with pork butter

We then shared four small plates. We probably could have even done just three, but that would have meant we didn't try one of these dishes, and I have no idea which one was my least favorite. We had shrimp cakes, roasted mushrooms, stuffed squash blossoms, and a polenta dish.

All four of our small plates

The shrimp cakes were similar to the more commonly seen crab cakes. They were topped with a radish salad which didn't have a ton of flavor but gave a nice crunch to the dish. The sauce, apricot and pickled peach purée, had a great flavor with the shrimp cakes. In all, this dish was fresh, not too heavy, and delicious.

shrimp cakes

The roasted wild mushroom dish was probably both Wes and my favorite. It was served with crispy pork, which tasted like yummy bacon in the dish. It also jalapenos that had me a little worried. I am not a fan of things that are too spicy. But, we didn't outright eat the peppers, so the spiciness was not too strong and the dish as a whole had the best flavor, texture, and was just delicious.

roasted wild mushrooms

One of the specials that night was the stuffed squash blossoms. The blossoms were filled with goat cheese and ricotta, lightly breaded and fried. They were served with fried crooked neck squash, mustard greens and topped with a green goddess dressing. YUM! It was all amazing. I love greens and Wes doesn't, so I probably lucked out and got every bite of those.

fried squash blossoms

And, finally, we had the polenta dish served with crispy chicken skin, soft cooked farm egg, cheddar, and wild mushrooms. What can go wrong when you throw some crispy chicken skin in a dish? With the egg, cheese, and polenta, this dish had the taste and feel of an almost breakfast or brunch item. It wasn't too rich but had tons of flavor in every bite.

polenta

As I said before, all the food we had this night was amazing. You certainly have a higher quality food and atmosphere at Epiphany than you would at other restaurants in Tuscaloosa. With the uniqueness of the dishes, I think this is more on par with what you would expect in a bigger city. And, in general, Tuscaloosa just doesn't have too much of that.  And, with the half price small plates during the week, we were able to spend a reasonable amount for a nicer night out and enjoy special food.

Nashville

Ok, so I said in the beginning that I wanted the focus of this blog to be about Tuscaloosa and the things I do here. But, I went to Nashville for a conference this past weekend and I just wanted to talk a little bit about this fabulous city that happens to be an easy drive from T-town.

The conference was for AAF District 7. AAF is the American Advertising Federation, and district 7 encompasses Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee clubs. The conference changes every time to a different location and this time we were in Nashville.

Thursday night we hopped around on Broadway and 2nd Ave. checking out some live music and the night scene. One of my favorite stops was at Whiskey Bent. They had a great band playing. This is one of the best things about Nashville, the live music. It isn't hard to find someone who can sing and play in this town. After all, isn't that why everyone is there, trying to make it big?? We stopped by a few other spots but we landed at The Big Bang Bar last and stayed there the longest. This is a dueling piano bar. If you haven't been to one before, it is a lot of fun. The guys take requests for songs, the more money you tip, the more likely it is to get played. They play everything from Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, and my favorite, Def Leopard's Pour Some Sugar on Me. We used to have one of these places in Tuscaloosa and unfortunately it didn't make it. The Big Bang was so much fun, we went back the next night.

Like I said, we had so much fun at Big Bang we went back Friday night after our Denim and Diamonds party. We also stopped by Tootsies, a classic stop on Broadway. And, we went to Paradise Park, which was really cool. Again, live music is everywhere and it is all good! You shouldn't miss these bars either.

Saturday we took a special tour of the Ryman Auditorium. I grew up only a little over an hour away from Nashville and had been tons of times before to the city. But, this was my first time in the Ryman. It was absolutely beautiful.

The stage at the Ryman

They have the original pews that were in the building around the turn of the 20th century. Those are some old pews!

Original Pews in the Ryman

The stained glass windows were gorgeous. They call this the mother church of country music. And, it actually was built as a church to have revivals but that turned out to not be all that profitable and so they started books acts to perform.

Stained glass windows in the Ryman Auditorium

They have exhibits that come and go and some pieces of the Ryman history on display all the time. There was a Johnny and June display currently with some really Johnny Cash boots and I can't believe I didn't get a picture. But, this picture shows Minnie Pearl's dress which I thought was really cool.

This is a great venue to check out if you visit Nashville. Of course, we didn't get to see a live performance, but I hear that the sound and acoustics are great.  This visit to Nashville has me wanting more live music! I might just have to check out their calendar of events.

The gala Saturday night was at the top of the Pinnacle building in downtown Nashville. It was just an open space and they brought tables in for the event so it had a really cool vibe to it. But, the best part was the view. I love a view!! I would live at the top of the Empire State building or the top of the Sears Tower if I could. It is even better when the sun goes down and the night lights up the sky. I have always loved city lights. So, you can imagine the view from this party was right up my alley.

This group likes to have fun. So, after the presentation of Clubs of the Year, the new Governor of the District, and some lovely speeches, we had a great band that played for us. Justin Nault and his band played great cover songs that had a big group of us dancing. They were tons of fun and even took a bunch of requests we threw out at them. It just so happens, that Justin is also a piano player at The Big Bang Bar and we had seen him play there too. What a small town Nashville ended up being. This isn't the best picture of the band, but you can also see the set up of the room.

My friend, and fellow AAF Tuscaloosa member, Laura went to the conference too.  We had a great time, heard great music, danced, learned some new things about advertising, and all in all had a great Nashville experience. It wasn't my first, and it won't be my last visit to The Music City.

Weekend of excitement

This was a great weekend in Tuscaloosa. The weather was perfect, there were things happening, and we got to hang out with several friends. I already mentioned the wine tasting and the dinner we had at Five, so I am jumping right to Saturday. I decided to put these all in one post because while we had fun at all the places we went, none had quite enough to talk about alone.

We started Saturday at Tree House Farm and Nursery for their garden expo. Coach Pat Dye was speaking at 10:00 about Japanese Maple Trees and of course, that caught Wes' attention. I really enjoyed hearing him talk about the trees and the way he has come to love them.  After coaching at Auburn, he started a small nursery at his home and now it has grown into quite the Japanese Maple farm.  He taught us how to prune the trees. After the talk, we looked around at all the great plants they have. If you are looking for trees or bushes this is the place to go! We bought one of Coach Dye's trees for Wes' aunt and uncle.

Coach Dye pruning his trees.

The baby Japanese Maple we bought.

After Treehouse, we went downtown to see what was going on with the Tour de Tuscaloosa and the Druid City Arts Festival. We had lunch at Depalma's. This is my favorite restaurant in town and some of my favorite Italian anywhere. I will make a whole post about this one sometime, but just quickly, the food has always been good, the service is good, and the atmosphere is really cool. There is always a mix of people, from college students, to young couples, to business people at lunch during the week. This visit I had the Mediterranean pasta with chicken. It is one of the lighter pastas, with less sauce but lots of flavor from the greek olives, peperoncini peppers and feta cheese.

We walked around downtown for a bit following lunch and made our way over to the Druid City Arts Festival. This art show is put on by a group on campus. I saw an article yesterday that it might be the last year as some of the founders of the event are graduating, but I hope they figure out a way to keep it going.  There was quite a variety of vendors and artists set up in the government plaza, the green space behind the city hall. Bands were playing music throughout the afternoon. One of my friends, Rebecca, had her Little Bee Design tent set up with her punny art! And, we walked around and saw jewelery, paintings, and knitting a lot of the other tents.

The Junior League of Tuscaloosa was hosting a wine and beer tasting at The Alcove, so we walked over there after we finished at the festival. The Alcove is a really cool spot in town with lots of beer selection, on tap and in bottles, and the home of the 2 oz drinks. They have some patio areas and have expanded what used to be a very small area inside. The crowd is an older crowd and is usually more laid back.  This event had the bar pretty crowded but it was a fun event and we enjoyed the tasting. I always recommend The Alcove for non college students looking for a cool place to have a drink, and we enjoyed sitting out back on the patio with some friends.